The Worst Witch 2017 - Prince
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Co-written with Hallow Sisters On My Mind, and using one of her characters. Esmerelda Hallow and the rest of Cackles meet someone whom she has tried to keep out of her life that she shares with her beloved sisters, and eventually the consequences are far-reaching...


I wrote this with the help of my dear friend Hallow Sisters on My Mind, and she knows I've written this one-shot.

Oh, I don't own the Worst Witch, which is a pity. But I'm hoping for Series 3 to be just as dynamic and offer new insights into the characters which it's gone to great lengths to do, far more than the original series.

Enjoy.

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Prince.

The girls were chanting in the Great Hall of Cackle's Academy. Out of the corner of her eye, Esmerelda Hallow mentally smiled as she looked at both of her sisters. After being away from the school for a year and forced to stay at home with her irritating parents in that time, listening as they went through life without giving any thought at all to how she was coping without magic, how they came up with schemes to punish Miss Cackle for what had happened, Esmerelda was just pleased to be back at school.

Okay, granted, she was a year behind, but she didn't care. She had spent months reading and re-reading the various books in the Hallow family library. She was lucky she was getting through the remedial classes without too many problems thanks to that knowledge and keeping up with her studies.

Unfortunately, her Head-Girl duties made it difficult to keep up and keep an eye on both of her sisters.

Finally, the daily chant began to die down as they neared the final verses, and when it was over the girls sat down while Miss Cackle stood up and swept her benevolent gaze around the hall.

"Well met, girls," she said, placing her hand to her head in the ritualistic greeting.

After the girls repeated the greeting, Miss Cackle smiled, "I have a few announcements to make….,"

Ethel whispered, "Do you reckon they've finally hired someone who can cook?"

Esmerelda and Sybil giggled, but they weren't the only ones. School dinners had a terrible reputation worldwide, but at Cackles they were very real. The morning slop was basically a primitive cereal mixed with something with the consistency of watered down cement or poly filler because it hurt just to chew. Sometimes it wasn't a problem - there were toast and porridge, but that was it, just the bare necessities. Lunch was just as bad with sandwiches that were made with some kind of grey mush though there were soups that were half cooked, and dinner was basically liver and cold greasy gravy, and heaven alone knew what else. It was every student's dream that the school would throw out the tradition and get some decent food and people who could actually cook.

Miss Hardbroom saw the disturbance and she instantly snapped out in her deadly voice that cracked like a whip that whistled through the air. "You three, be silent!"

The Hallow sisters and their neighbours went quiet, but Miss Cackle didn't seem bothered by it, in fact, she looked amused. "No, I'm afraid not, Ethel. No, I was going to say we shall be receiving a visit from another magical school, the wizard school Camelot High."

Esmerelda was instantly on her feet before her brain computed what she was doing, she was too horrified to think straight. "NO!" she screamed, her voice echoing around the hall.

Everyone was taken by surprise by the sudden eruption from the usually quiet, mild-mannered girl, the students turned or swivelled in their seats to gape with surprise, and some of them whispered to their friends, but the sound of Miss Hardbroom's strident voice instantly silenced those whispers.

"Esmerelda Hallow, sit down at once!" her voice was angry with the interruption, but Esmerelda was too horrified by the news to obey, and besides she had just realised she was standing up and everyone in the hall was looking at her in shock for what she was doing, but she found she didn't care.

Miss Cackle was a little calmer than her deputy and more concerned than outright dismissive. "Esmerelda, whatever is the matter?"

"Miss Cackle," she said seriously as she tried hard to stop herself from rushing out of the hall and burying her head in the sand. "Cancel this visit. Please. Don't bring HIM here! You don't know what the whining little moron is like!" she said desperately, hoping that Miss Cackle would listen to her, but she knew on a logical level the headmistress would not understand what was wrong.

She was right, Miss Cackle looked confused.

"Who are you talking about?" the headmistress asked.

Esmerelda closed her eyes, trying hard to control her emotions even while they threatened to explode but then she was always brought down whenever HE was nearby, or HE was mentioned. "Prince. He's this whiny, spoilt, arrogant brat. He is the world's worst child."

"And who, dare I ask, is this Prince?" Miss Hardbroom asked, sounding like she had nothing better to ask.

"He's the child of…..friends, I guess you could call them that, of my parents. He's whiny, selfish, arrogant, spoilt…. please, do not bring him here. Don't allow him to come," Esmerelda said desperately even though she knew she didn't have the right to make this type of demand to Miss Cackle, but she had to try. "You'll hate him. Trust me. I never thought it was possible to hate someone, but then I met Prince."

Miss Cackle shook her head, and Esmerelda felt as though her heart was dropping to where her stomach was. "I'm sure he isn't that bad," the headmistress said.

Esmerelda was beginning to see she was wasting her time, but just as she was about to shrug her shoulders and sit back down and wait until the wizards from the other school arrived so then they could see for themselves what Prince was like, she sensed one of her sisters standing up, and to her surprise she saw it was Sybil. That was a surprise - usually, Sybil was too nervous and timid to speak up, but now here she was, and Esmerelda felt her heart swell with love for her little sister.

"Miss Cackle," Sybil's voice was shy, but she was doing her best to remain strong even as she ran the risk of getting herself put into detention with Miss Hardbroom, "if Esme says this Prince is bad, then, well, he is."

This was too much for Miss Hardbroom. "Oh, for goodness sake. Sit down now, the pair of you!"

"Oh, forget it, then!" Esmerelda said at this point, sitting down with a sigh. She had just about had enough. "You'll find out what that irritating little twat is like."

Everyone gaped at her in surprise, they had never heard her use language like that before. But Esmerelda sat back in her hard wooden seat, wearing a haunted expression on her face where everyone around her, her sisters and their neighbours could see she was clearly on the verge of crying. Even the teachers saw it.

Miss Cackle looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but she didn't think there was anything to worry about with this young wizard, Prince, and that Esmerelda was exaggerating.

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The rest of the assembly passed quickly enough with Miss Cackle issuing a few extra announcements before they let the students go, and the Hallow sisters went back to Esmerelda's room. The younger girls were concerned for their elder sister, Esmerelda looked like she wanted to decide whether to violently sick or throw herself out of the window.

Ethel sat down next to her on the bed, "Esme, what on Earth is the matter?"

Esme didn't speak. She couldn't, she was too horrified by the news to speak. Ethel looked at her strangely, she had never seen her elder sister like this. Ever. Not even when she, Ethel, had tricked her into giving her magic away to Agatha Cackle. Oh, Esme had been horrified but she had managed to adjust to the loss.

But this…. Ethel had never expected to see her sister like this.

Sybil sat down on the other side of Esme. "Tell us more about this Prince, he must really be bad if you're this upset?"

With a sigh, Esmerelda looked between her sisters with a solemn expression. "Our parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided to betroth me to this little creep," she said.

Ethel and Sybil exchanged a look with each other with their sister in between. Betrothals were not uncommon in the magical world. They were used to strengthen their society. At least that was what they were meant to do in theory. In practice, they were actually used by older, wealthier families as a means to create a tie, to finalise a business deal. It wasn't illegal, nor was it frowned upon by the Magic Council since many of their own families were wealthy and practiced betrothals. For ordinary families, no-one really cared about betrothal contracts. They married whomever they liked.

Ethel and Sybil were more than aware their elder sister was…. well, the eldest child of their current family, so she would be considered the best candidate in their family to be betrothed, but they had always imagined their parents would ignore that part of their culture. It had never occurred to them both she'd be betrothed, and they wondered how long Esme had been betrothed.

"Oh, why!?" Esmerelda suddenly shouting and making both of her sisters jump with shock. She looked at them apologetically when she realised she had scared them both, but she was still upset. "Why, why is he coming? I don't get to see the little bastard all year round, why does he have to torment me like this?!" she ranted, surprising her sisters as well as the way she had cursed the wizard.

Ethel licked her lips. "When were you betrothed to this guy?"

Esmerelda winced at the memory. "Our parents - ours and Prince's - forced us together since I was seven," Esmerelda explained, "even then he was unbearable. At first, I thought it was exciting, you know meeting someone near your own age. Bear in mind this was before I knew what our parents were doing; I loved you both, but I wanted to have friends of my own age group," she then scowled, "but when I met him….. It was like meeting someone I could have been if things had been different. Every time I met him, I came away with a headache, and a wish my parents wouldn't inflict him on me ever again. I never got my wish. Answering your question, they finalised the betrothal two years ago."

Sybil and Ethel shared a look.

For the next hour, they tried asking her more about Prince but Esmerelda was tight-lipped; she had said enough, soon everyone would experience what she had been going through for so long. There was only one thing she had said, and it had made both Ethel and Sybil worried because it wasn't like Esmerelda to not tell them what was on her mind or what was bothering her. All she had said was "wait and find out, then when he comes, everyone will know what Prince is like. Including HB and Cackle."

00000000000

The arrival of the wizards from Camelot High meant the teachers - Miss Hardbroom - stressed herself out trying to get the students straightened out while making sure the school looked presentable. Esmerelda didn't care, she was too busy worrying herself to death and wished she could find some way to avoid what was coming. But she had other problems.

Some of the more curious witches had asked her - well, more like poked their noses into why she had reacted so violently and vehemently when she had learnt Prince was coming. But Esmerelda had decided to keep quiet, they would soon find out what her problem with the young wizard was.

Why spoil the surprise? But thinking about Prince mentally exhausted her, and the little bastard wasn't even here yet. Esmerelda always tried to avoid thinking about the stupid friends of her parents, they were no friends of hers despite her parents drilling into her mind over and over again how important it was to have connections, and while she understood that she wished her parents didn't force her to interact with people who were only looking to increase their own wealth and status in magical society.

Prince often made her think that was the kind of person her parents expected her to be; spoilt, arrogant, overly proud of her achievements and damning everyone else while acting like a simpering airhead whenever her hubby was nearby. It was never going to happen, but Esme sometimes thought that she could have had the kind of personality Prince had. But she could never imagine living without her sisters. Ever.

When the dreaded day of the arrival of the contingent of Camelot High came Esmerelda stood at the very back. She was doing this for three reasons, firstly because she wanted to pretend what was happening was not happening, secondly because she wanted to keep her sisters away from this part of her life, and thirdly because she didn't even want to see Prince and she didn't want him to see her until the last moment.

The Wizards swept over the school on their broomsticks. Esmerelda rolled her eyes even as she tried to hide, and she wondered why every magical school needed to show off; oh, she could understand the need to compete, but sometimes people went a bit too far. She remembered how it had been when Miss Pentangle arrived for the Spelling Bee in Ethel's first year, how the Pentangles students had shown off a few times and those rumours about how marvellous Pentangles was started up.

Personally, Esmerelda didn't care - in her mind, a school was a school and you could dream all you wanted, it wasn't going to be too different from the place you were going.

The wizards of Camelot High were no different from Pentangles, but their teachers were the ones doing the showing off. The majority of the teachers carried staffs which they carried effortlessly after years of practice balancing on the broomsticks. From the staffs, they created spells that created fireworks, clouds of brightly coloured smoke, and sparks of dazzling light. Esmerelda could see the looks on the teachers' faces and the looks on the other girls. If you ever wanted to see a contrast, here it was.

The girls were amazed by the unexpected display, this expression of magic, and many of them gasped and gossiped to each other until their voices merged like the buzzing of an entire hive of bees or the chirping of birds in flight. But the teachers didn't look impressed, they had seen sights like this before over the years and so it didn't surprise them that much.

Miss Cackle's expression could just be seen. The elderly Headmistress had her usual benevolent, kindly, wise look on her face, but Esmerelda knew the woman well enough to know the older witch was getting bored by the display but she was too polite and diplomatic to not show her irritation off. Esmerelda envied her and wondered if that type of control would only come when she was older, though she had always been good at masking her feelings.

But her feelings towards Prince was the exception of that, and soon everyone who thought her life was glamorous as the heiress of House Hallow was not as it seemed. There were other students who came from wealthy backgrounds, but her family was wealthier than others.

Finally, the headmaster decided their display had done its job, and he raised his staff high above his head in a definite signal, and he started to land. He was followed by his teachers who flew down and landed and formed a perfect circle before their students landed as well, resplendent in their uniforms of red, gold, black and yellow.

The headmaster strode forwards, dressed in robes of a deep rich dark burgundy. Unlike many other wizards and witches who wore robes, the headmaster hadn't bothered dressing in robes with stars, but there was what looked like a series of runes, his staff towering over them. The staff was basically a long golden pole with a golden gild wrapped around it covered with runes and jewels. The staff was gaudy in appearance as a result but Esmerelda knew enough about staffs to know that despite its appearance the staff was very, very, very powerful and highlighted the headmaster's status as a fully qualified wizard. The robes also showed it off.

Esmerelda knew that many wizards used staffs not just as a focus of their magic, but also to demonstrate status. For some wizards, like her father, it made little difference if they had a staff. Esmerelda knew why the headmaster and his teachers were dressed in robes and carried staffs. It had to do with inspiring their students. Witch teachers were much the same, but they dressed in robes and wore their hats as a way of showing their students that they could become full witches.

But wizards could be more pretentious than witches.

The headmaster and his teachers dressed in the robes and carried staffs as a means of telling their students "we used to be like you now. You can become just like us in the future if you buckle down."

The headmaster approached Miss Cackle, a large and genuinely warm smile on his face - Esmerelda wondered if the man was actually being sincere, she knew that many wizards looked down on witches, particularly the more arrogant ones but she thought she was being a bit too harsh; this wizard was an educator and would know to respect others like him - and as soon as they were close to each other the wizard instantly raised his hand to his forehead and bowed.

"Well met, Miss Cackle," he greeted warmly.

"Well met," Miss Cackle returned, touching her forehead in the same way. "Welcome to Cackles Academy. I trust your journey went well."

"Oh it wasn't too bad," the wizard smiled before he turned to the Cackle's students and teachers. "Well met ladies," he greeted before he turned to the only wizard on the Cackle's staff. "Well met, Algernon. It's good to see you again."

The young witches and the teachers returned the greeting, and when it was over the headmaster was about to speak to Miss Cackle about the arrangements for their stay when -

"WHERE IS THE FOOD?! I HAVEN'T EATEN ALL DAY! I'M HUNGRY, WHERE IS MY FOOD?!"

The teachers of Camelot High groaned, and some of them even muttered to one another, and the Camelot High headmaster closed his eyes and lowered his head with a sigh even as it looked like he was about to fight the urge to rub his head.

"Not now, Prince," he whispered.

A boy pushed himself through the crowd. He wasn't particularly very tall, but he was plump and definitely on the way to being fat. His eyes were fairly beady little blue eyes, but there was something in his face that made him look like a rat, though it was an insult to rodents everywhere. He had a nose that was pointed in the air which made it look like he was always looking down on people.

Esmerelda groaned, and everyone around her knew that this boy was the Prince she had pleaded Miss Cackle not to allow into the school. Ethel and Sybil looked at their sister with pity. They didn't know enough about him, but they were starting to get a horrible idea of what he was like. Esmerelda had known for a long time that her parents' plans would mean that her sisters would soon meet Prince, but she had hoped they would never meet the arrogant little shit until a long time into the future where she could find a way of annulling their so-called engagement.

Prince demonstrated that arrogance right now. In a brazen move that took everyone by surprise since it was a breach in magical protocol, he strode forward and began yelling as soon as he was close enough to the headteachers of the two schools.

"MY PARENTS PARENTS PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO ENSURE I GET THE BEST TREATMENT, SO WHERE IS THE FOOD?!"

Esmerelda didn't need to look to see that Miss Cackle was overwhelmed by what was going on, and the visit had barely started yet. "Don't you want to see your room first?" she asked, clearly wanting to get the boy away from her. No one could blame her. Esmerelda was just thinking 'welcome to my world,' but she knew it would do no good. When Prince went off into one of his ranting temper tantrums, he was virtually unstoppable.

"No, I want food NOW, LADY!" Prince practically bellowed at Miss Cackle. Esme rolled her eyes, cursing the boy's parents for spoiling him to this extent.

The Camelot high headmaster was clearly embarrassed. "Shut up, Prince!" he said loudly in an attempt to draw the younger wizard's anger away from Miss Cackle before he looked pleadingly at the witch. "I'm so sorry, Miss Cackle, unfortunately, you see what we have to cope with. And we couldn't leave Prince at the school. Someone has to keep an eye on our…..worst wizard."

Miss Cackle exchanged a concerned look with Miss Hardbroom; for Esmerelda this was news. For someone who harped on about being the most powerful and greatest wizard since Merlin himself, it was a shock to hear just how bad Prince was implied to be. But looking at her teachers…. Esmerelda knew it had been Miss Hardbroom who called Mildred Hubble 'the worst witch,' but Esmerelda actually thought it insulting then but now…. she had an idea of why Prince was considered the worst of his school, next to him Mildred was an A star student. At least she wanted to learn.

Hardbroom looked at Prince in surprise, which warred with the clear distrust she had whenever men who were not Mr Rowan-Webb on her face. "This….this is Prince?"

The Camelot High headmaster was surprised by the question and the implication the Cackle's teachers had already heard about him beforehand, but before he could even speak the younger wizard instantly got there first.

"That is my name!" he said in a smug tone while an obnoxiously wide smile crossed his face. "I didn't realise my fame was known to all."

In the crowd Esmerelda closed her eyes and sighed with irritation, cursing the boy's parents for blowing his head to such a proportion that it could eclipse the sun before she reopened them.

Clearly surprised by the arrogance of the boy who had a headmaster who said he was the worst student in the school, HB said slowly, "Yes, one of our pupils knows you…"

Prince blinked stupidly. "Oh really. Who?" he demanded.

Oh no, Esmerelda thought to herself and looked down at her feet, praying that Miss Hardbroom would keep her gob shut, but she knew that HB didn't have a clue about the relationship between herself and the brat. "Please don't say my name, please don't say my name," she whispered, but she knew it was hopeless.

The moment Esme dreaded came.

"Esmerelda Hallow," HB said.

Esmerelda closed her eyes, cursing HB and wishing she could kill the deputy headmistress. While she respected the woman, there were moments where she was tired by the woman and wished she was a bit more aware and tactful of her students. This was one of the few moments where Esme wished she could physically hurt the woman for being unimaginably stupid.

"Oh no," she whispered, knowing what was coming next….

Prince's arrogant look returned with a look of glee that looked anything but nice. On him, it was like looking at a greedy kid who was looking for more.

"Ahh, my future wife. Oh yes, I remember, she does come to school here, " he said in a pompous manner, and his smugness was on show for everyone to see.

The reactions of everyone was….. interesting. Ethel and Sybil had already known about the betrothal promise between Prince and their sister, but no-one else had guessed it. The students - boys and girls - from older or wealthier families were not particularly surprised by the news. But the Hallow sisters were observant enough to see many people looked pityingly at Esme; the boys looked like they were about to offer their condolences since they had to put up with Prince on a daily basis for Merlin knew how long, and the girls from their own school, although they didn't know enough about Prince yet to form their own opinions on the boy, they hadn't gotten a good impression of him.

Esmerelda gritted her teeth and looked down at her toes while she had her face in her hands. "I hate my life," she said clearly while her voice was muffled. "Thanks, Miss Hardbroom, thank you very much."

HB herself was surprised. "Wait, the Hallow sisters are promised to people already?"

It was unusual for witches and wizards to be betrothed so early in their lives. Usually, most families waited until their children were old enough to be promised. This happened when they were at school so then they could showcase their achievements to attract potential suitors, but it wasn't unusual for parents to not to wait.

Prince shrugged uncaringly at the mention of Esmerelda's sisters. "I don't know, I've never met her sisters," he replied in his arrogant voice, his tone suggesting he didn't care either way, "but one day she will be married." Here Prince's voice became more arrogant as a look of pride crossed his face. "She's going to be lucky. She gets the most amazing person ever, so she should be grateful to me."

Ethel and Sybil looked at their sister, amazed by the arrogance of the boy and they pitied their sister for having to put up with the guy. Esmerelda was still looking down while she looked like she was about to rip her blonde hair out until she was bald.

"Oh, just get lost Prince," Esme whispered desperately, not that her sisters could blame her as she looked at the ground.

But Prince was just getting started, she knew that when he had the opportunity to boast he always did. "I am called Prince as I am perfect like a prince," he said arrogantly, preening like a peacock.

His preening made the Camelot High teachers look away in disgust or just snort disdainfully at him. But this was too much for Esmerelda who shouted loudly as the arrogant, self-important boast proved too much for her to cope, "Oh piss off," and by the time she realised she had said it too loud, it was too late.

Suddenly the crowd thinned as everyone started in surprise at her shout and everyone was trying to hide from saw her. She found herself looking at Prince who was looking back at her, and she had to resist the urge to vomit. She quickly came up with an excuse for what she'd said. "I was….err….. I had to tie up my shoes."

Ethel rolled her eyes at her sister's pathetic excuse.

"Why don't we go inside?" Miss Cackle suggested in order to stop the awkwardness, and the Camelot High headmaster was about to say something to his students and teachers but Prince ignored them all with his nose in the air.

Slowly the crowd thinned as the students from both schools were ushered into the Academy, but the Hallow sisters hung back to talk to one another. The three blonde girls were so attuned to one another they knew, more or less, what the others were thinking. The moment Miss Cackle made her suggestion, the elder sister knew her younger sisters wanted to speak to her desperately.

As was typical with the Hallow sisters they waited until the crowd had thinned to the point where they could speak openly without needing to lower their voices, and equally typical it was Ethel who began the conversation. "You know how you said Prince was bad?" she began and she waited until Esme nodded, knowing what her sister was about to say. "Well, he is."

Esmerelda sighed, "Trust me, you haven't seen anything yet. There's worse to come."

Sybil had another concern. "You can't marry him!" she hissed desperately.

Esme snorted. "Tell that to our stupid parents," she said before she looked up and let some of her emotions come out. A look of infinite exhaustion and despair like she was about to lose it. "Oh, I hope they're not going to be here long - I have enough problems being with the arrogant little bastard for a day, I don't know HOW I'll cope with him being here for longer."

Neither sister commented or reacted to the swearing, they had become used to it. Ethel, meanwhile, was suddenly remembering all of the times she had been jealous and cranky whenever Esme went off with her parents. She had always been jealous when that happened, but she had always caught a look of despair on Esme's face like the older girl wondered if she would ever come back alive.

"Hold on….. is…. is Prince the kid you have to see when you go to those family dinners? When you have to go to the theatre sometimes with mum and dad?" she asked aghast.

Esmerelda nodded seriously, hoping that Ethel would, at last, see that being the eldest was not what it was cracked up to be. "YES! And every time I do, every time I see him," she screwed her eyes up and gritted her teeth together as if she were about to scream at the injustice, "I strangle a doll to relieve the stress! I bought this doll some time ago to relieve the stress, the irritation I feel every time I meet him. Prince is the only person I have ever met who has made me want to murder someone. I just wish I'd brought the fucking thing into the school, but I didn't because I was stupid enough to think it was safe. Well, silly me!"

Ethel and Sybil looked at one another. Their sympathy for their big sister was growing with each second, and they were not surprised to hear this about the doll when they heard about it. Ethel looked down at her feet, remembering all the aggravation she felt with Mildred, but she had to admit Mildred had never made her feel murderous to the extent Esme probably felt around someone like Prince.

"You should have told us," Ethel said finally, deciding to put her own personal problems with Mildred aside as she looked seriously at her sister, "I could have posed as you, or Sybil could have."

The normally timid Hallow sister nodded seriously. "Yes, we could have shared the torture, given you some breathing space.'

Esmerelda couldn't help it, she just smiled gratefully at her siblings. She was deeply touched by their kindness and she felt her heart swell with love for them once more especially since they knew Prince would probably have driven them to insanity as well. "I wouldn't have wanted you to go through that, and I wouldn't wish Prince to be forced on anyone. Trust me, Ethel, after this mess is over and done with," she began seriously as she looked at the middle Hallow girl, "you'll think Mildred is a saint compared to Prince."

Ethel sighed. "I think I already do," she said just as seriously, "at least with Mildred she isn't yelling and believing the world owes her something."

Sybil frowned as they walked through the corridors following a few other students at a safe distance. It looked as though they were heading into the Great Hall. That made sense - it had been a long journey, the wizards were probably hungry.

"Did you hear how the headmaster described Prince as the worst wizard?" she asked her sisters.

"Yeah, I did," Esme answered, "so much for the 'Greatest Wizard since Merlin,'" she added, air-quoting the frequent boast.

Ethel looked at her in surprise, though she wasn't entirely shocked; in spite of her limited experience of the guy, it was clear nothing would surprise her about Prince at this point. "He actually thinks that of himself?"

"Oh yeah," Esme said as they approached the double doors of the hall, but before she could say anything else they were greeted by the sound of screaming.

Esme groaned at the sound, "Oh no, it's started."

The sound was so loud Sybil covered her ears.

Prince was screaming at the teachers and the dinner witches, his face was red with outrage. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO SHARE THE TOILETS?!"

Oh, so that was what had gotten him riled up. Esmerelda sighed to herself, knowing that Prince disliked toilets that were not his own, Merlin knew why, and she cursed the boy's parents for making him spoilt to this extent. She had done that before, but she guessed it had only been a matter of time before this came out.

Miss Cackle once more tried to keep the peace but Esme wondered how long it would be before she stopped and realised she was wasting her time and her energy. "We don't have en-suites," she said placatingly, but Prince was beyond reason at that point.

"I DEMAND MY OWN TOILET FROM HOME!" he bellowed.

Esmerelda screwed her face up and groaned, amazed once more by how….. childish and petulant Prince behaved even though he was around her own age, but the way he bellowed out his wishes like that in front of other people….. if it was one of her sisters, she would be embarrassed. Esmerelda was remembering how many times the whiny brat had demanded to be taken home for a piss or a shit, refusing to use the public toilets on hand already. She noted the students from Camelot High sigh, facepalm themselves or groan while looking they wanted to cast a spell to shut the boy up.

For the first time ever, she wondered how it was for them to have to put up with the object called Prince, but there was still time enough to find out.

The Camelot Headmaster closed his eyes in annoyance, looking like he was going to forget the code that bound him and every other witch and wizard, and actually attack the boy though no-one would blame him. "Prince, will you be quiet?!" he growled, clearly getting angry, but Prince didn't see it.

"NO, I WILL NOT BE QUIET! I DEMAND MY OWN TOILET FROM HOME!" Prince bellowed before he looked around the Hall, "MOTHER! MOTHER!"

Ethel and Sybil looked at Esme in disbelief, their expressions going "is this for real?"

Esme just nodded that it was. She suddenly looked like she was on the verge of crying at the injustice of having Prince in the same school as her, and both of her sisters hugged her. Esme hugged them back, grateful they were there or else she would have gone mad.

Meanwhile, Prince's mother appeared at her son's call.

Esme closed her eyes at the sight of the woman. Like her son, the woman had a haughty demeanour identical to her son, though hers was more controlled than Prince's and less petulant. The moment she appeared she looked around quizzically; she had never been to Cackles before and wondered why her connection to her son had brought her here, to this place. She soon spotted Prince, though he wasn't hard to miss.

"What is going on?" she asked.

The moment he heard his mother's voice, Prince began crying, and he began to sniffle. Some of the girls and boys shifted away from him, the sound of the cries was as loud as the screaming, but it was the way the contents up his nostrils blew out over his face like thick slimy caterpillars that disgusted them.

"MUMMY, I HAVE TO SHARE A TOILET!" he blubbered, drool trickling out of his mouth. Many witches turned away in disgust.

If the Cackle's teachers were expecting or hoping for this woman to control or scold their son, they were in for a shocking disappointment. The Camelot High teachers were not expecting miracles.

The woman was immediately angry, but not with Prince. "WHAT?!" she glared at the teachers. "Is this true, my son has to share toilets?"

Esmerelda sighed when she could see the look of surprise mixing with annoyance on Miss Cackle's face and whispered so low that only her sisters could hear what she was saying, "I really hate this family."

Ethel and Sybil nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, Miss Cackle was beginning to explain the situation. She was used to dealing with difficult students, and she was also used to dealing with difficult parents. She was confident about her success, but part of her wondered if she would succeed here.

"Yes, I am sorry," she began as diplomatically as she could, "but we don't have toilets for every pupil at this school."

But Prince's mother refused to listen. "This is unacceptable!"

Miss Cackle took a deep breath to steady her nerves, she was beginning to lose her patience with this woman and her son, and she wondered to herself what in the world had made her choose this approach to parenting but she was curious about whether the woman could even see for herself the harm it had done to her son.

And she lost her patience with her. "Oh, just take him home, then."

Esme closed her eyes, and she clapped her hands together to pray. "Please Merlin, let her take him home."

Prince's mother's eyes flared angrily. "Don't speak to me in that tone!" she hissed before a malicious grin appeared on her face, making her look like a bitchy schoolgirl bullying another, weaker girl. "I know Ursula Hallow, she's a personal friend of mine-."

The Camelot High headmaster sighed loudly, drawing attention to himself even as he glared with contempt at the woman. "And she was thrown off the Magic Council, don't forget," he reminded her, "she no longer has any power to cause problems; she might have the Hallow name and wealth to back her up, but she no longer has that authority. Even the Great Wizard wouldn't give her the time of day, and he won't care about some little spat like this. Don't threaten us, Mrs Moonlight. We're doing our best even if your son is completely inattentive when it comes to his work."

That was something Prince did understand, someone mocking him.

"I am the greatest wizard in the world!" he shouted angrily.

The Camelot High headmaster snorted at him, showing just how he felt about that boast. The fact he didn't care that he was doing it in front of the boy's mother spoke volumes.

Esmerelda couldn't stop herself, she cried, "Ha!" before she could stop herself.

Prince's mother turned, giving the headmaster the shoulder. She smiled at Esmerelda with the same amount of warmth of a blizzard in December. "Ahh, Esmerelda, good morning."

Annoyed with herself for even making a sound Esmerelda couldn't say anything else but "Good morning."

The Camelot High headmaster remembered what he was going to say. "You're anything but the greatest wizard in the world, Prince. You don't do the work, you moan and whine whenever you are asked to do something-," he said but Prince interrupted.

"I don't need to work," Prince interrupted, "I am perfect. Why is why I am called Prince as I am perfect, aren't I mum?"

Prince's mum spoke in the same arrogant tone. "Of course bubba," she said before she turned to Miss Cackle, and her voice turned cold and her expression became harder which was a contrast to how she had just spoken to her son. "I demand you give him his own toilet or I will go to the Great Wizard."

Miss Cackle gaped at the threat, surprised the Great Wizard would be involved at all. She couldn't help but snort. "Why should the Great Wizard care if your son has a private toilet or not?" she asked.

Prince's mother gave a smile that seemed like a smirk, a sneer and a leer all at once. "Because I pay for this school to remain open."

The Camelot High Headmaster sighed in a way that said he had heard this too many times in the past and no longer cared. "Ignore her, Miss Cackle-," he tried to say but Prince's mother was just as rude and as obnoxious as her son. "Of course I do, don't you know anything?" she snapped.

Esmerelda saw the teachers - HB, Bat, Drill and the others - bristle visibly at the slight, but the headmaster interrupted before anyone could say anything.

"She pays the same rates as everyone else, Miss Cackle. Its only in her little mind that she feels she and her family are holding the magical world together," the Camelot High Headmaster said with such disdain as he looked at Prince's mother that Esme had to stop herself laughing.

Prince's mother was speechless with anger. "How-how dare you speak to me in such a tone-!"

But the wizard was fed up with this and had reached the end of his patience. Esmerelda had neared the end of hers as well so she could relate to both Miss Cackle and the unfortunate Camelot High headmaster. "Come on," she said to her sisters, looking pale, "let's let them fight this out."

Neither Ethel or Sybil had any trouble with that and they walked off to find a table in an attempt to escape Prince, but the boy had an impressive set of lungs and his mother was no different. The three sisters had a furious whispered discussion.

"We have to do something about that guy," Esmerelda said. "I just wish he wasn't here, it was easier pretending he didn't exist if he wasn't here."

"What can we do?" Sybil asked, wincing again as the loud screams echoed through the hall.

Ethel shrugged, "We could lock him in a toilet."

"Not good enough, but tempting," Esmerelda said before she sighed. "Besides he'd get out."

"What does Prince hate more than anything?" Ethel asked.

Esme shrugged, "Dunno, whenever we meet I try to tune him out, but he depends on his parents too much. We would probably have to gag him."

Sybil mulled it over before she said optimistically, "I'm sure we can think of something, but maybe we should get Enid to help."

Ethel groaned when Esme nodded in agreement, and said, "Yeah."

That only made Ethel groan again. "I don't want to work with her, or with Mildred Hubble," she moaned.

Esmerelda turned to Ethel. "Ethie," she began with her eyes narrowed in her own deadly, patented Hallow glare.

Ethel just groaned. "Oh, please don't look at me like that-," she began.

Sybil giggled silently when Esme repeated herself more loudly, strengthening the glare without hesitation. "Ethel!" she said.

Ethel groaned again. "Alright," she said with a melodramatic sigh, "fine, let's go find Hubble."

With that she flounced away, her long blonde hair bouncing in her wake. Esmerelda shared a smirk with her younger sister and they followed.

"Works every single time," Esme whispered to her younger sister, making Sybil let out a soft giggle. It didn't take the Hallow sisters long to find the three friends, but with the screaming and with the presence of the wizard students in the hall, it was hard for Esmerelda to really focus on finding Mildred, Maud and Enid.

When they found the three, at last, Esmerelda had already tried to distract herself with finding a few ideas she could use to really get Prince out of her life. The three friends were talking and occasionally wincing at the sound of the screams, but they looked up when Esmerelda dropped onto a seat near them, closely followed by her sisters.

Esmerelda threw out whatever pride she had as she begged the three, knowing that they would do their best to help her. "Please help me get rid of him, I beg you!" she pleaded.

"Are you really promised to that guy?" Mildred just had to ask.

Esme nodded, "Sadly yes."

Mildred gave into her curiosity. "Why?"

Esmerelda was about to reply when Maud elbowed her, making Mildred hiss. "It's okay, Maud," Esme said knowing that there was little information about magical marriages in the library so Mildred would be curious as a result. "You see Mildred, in the Witching world, families, particularly the rich ones, sometimes make bargains that are sealed with marriage. In this case, for reasons my parents and Prince's own family know, we've been paired."

"But for many families, like mine," Enid added in, "it makes no difference. They married for love. It's a shame you can't choose," she finished looking with open pity at Esmerelda.

Ordinarily Esmerelda would privately be annoyed by someone pitying her, but in this case, she accepted it because now everyone was getting an idea of what her life was like. "Yeah, I hated that little shit from the moment we met."

Prince could be heard screaming again, and the three other girls winced at the sound. Esmerelda risked a look. She couldn't see Prince's mother anymore, so she must have gone by now, but Prince was probably trying to exercise his 'power' by making stupid demands.

"I can see why you hated him since you first met," Mildred commented, "the guy is a lunatic."

Esmerelda privately thought that was a kind description but it was accurate enough.

"Does he really depend on his mother to the extent he only needs to scream for her, doesn't he even know how to take care of himself?" Mildred asked.

Esmerelda shook her head. "No," she replied, "When they go, he'll be hopeless."

Maud shook her head pityingly as she looked in the general direction Prince's screams were coming from before she looked at the elder Hallow girl. "That's sad, he can't live relying on mummy and daddy forever."

"He can and he will," Esmerelda said knowing it to be a certainty before she looked haunted and on the verge of crying her heart out. "My future is going to be awful."

Ethel reached out and touched her sister's hand. "Try not to think about it," she said as soothingly as she could.

Prince screamed again and Enid looked irritably at Esmerelda and her friends. "Do you think I'd be expelled if Prince suddenly happened to be turned into a snail?"

Ethel snorted, "The way things are going, I think Cackle and HB would probably thank you and give you a special service award for the school award."

"Don't forget the other wizards," Sybil commented when she saw the way the wizards winced and groaned whenever Prince screamed. "They have to put up with him for longer."

But Mildred was more fixated on why Prince's parents had warped him to this degree. "How can his parents do this to him?"

"They spoil him rotten Mildred," Esmerelda explained, "but this goes beyond normal spoiling. They give Prince everything in a silver cauldron, no questions asked."

"I guessed," Mildred replied, shaking her head. "He reminds me of Veruca Salt."

"Who?" Ethel asked in confusion.

"Oh, a character in a book I read," Mildred explained, "it's called 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' Basically, these kids are invited to come to this famous chocolate factory with a reclusive owner. I can loan you the book if you want. One of the kids was this girl Veruca Salt. She was spoilt beyond belief, demanding from her parents everything from ponies, to boats, things she didn't even need. But she never screamed like this."

As if on cue Prince's voice could be heard screaming throughout the hall. "THIS IS NOT PROPER FOOD. GO AWAY AND MAKE ME SOMETHING BETTER."

Ethel lifted her head to see what was going on. Prince was standing by the stands where the Dinner witches dished out their muck and judging from the look on their faces even at the distance she was sitting they looked like they were fantasising about murdering the boy with food poisoning.

Esmerelda was also watching the latest drama with a haunted look. When he tore her eyes away from the scene she said, "It's scary, isn't it? Us three," she gestured between herself and her two sisters, "we should be acting like Prince, forever demanding things because of our family, our wealth and prestige, but you know what, for the first time I'm pleased our parents were uncaring about us even though their strict rules made sure we never behaved this badly." She shook her head as she finished her little statement.

Mildred, Maud, and Enid shared a look with Ethel and Sybil. It was true that Mr and Mrs Hallow had rules, but since Mildred and her friends didn't know what would happen to the three sisters if they bent or broke the rules they were willing to bet it would be unpleasant. As for the Hallow sisters, they didn't want to think of their parent's punishments.

Mildred said as gently as she could, "You're human compared to this guy."

Esmerelda agreed, knowing Mildred was right.

"How long are this lot going to be here for anyway, 'cause I can see they wish they weren't here, and there are others that just want to hurt Prince?" Enid asked.

Esmerelda shrugged. She didn't know how long the Camelot High bunch were going to be here for, ordinarily she wouldn't care because to her it wasn't anything to really think about, but with Prince here she just wanted them to leave. "I don't know, I only hope Miss Cackle asks them to leave soon," she replied.

Prince screamed again, but this time no-one at the table really cared about what the scream was about this time. "We have to do something about him," Maud said.

Esme sighed, "That's why we came to you. Enid, you're good with pranks, do you have any ideas?" she asked, looking at the more mischievous member of the trio.

Enid thought about it and she was about to reply when she winced when she heard a particularly loud scream, but she wasn't alone. "Give me a bit of time," she said.

The constant screaming made the six girls decide to choose a different table. But Prince followed them over. He had done what he had wanted to do, putting the teachers into their places and now he wanted to see Esmerelda. When he approached he shoved Sybil out of her seat. "Out! I need to sit as close as possible to my future wife!"

But Esmerelda was not interested in sitting close to her 'betrothed' and she immediately jumped out of her seat and rushed to Sybil. "SYBIE, are you okay?" she asked in a panic but fortunately the younger girl was more shaken than hurt, and Esmerelda helped her to her feet with Ethel not far behind her.

Once she was sure her little sister was okay, Esmerelda glared at Prince. "You little bastard, you could have hurt her."

But the glare rolled off of Prince. "Oh, she is just some stupid little kid. Get over it, you have to listen to me."

Esmerelda sneered. "Haha, as if that would happen," she snapped holding her sisters tightly. "You've just shoved my sister to the ground, why should I listen to you?"

Prince grinned smugly. "Because I am in charge of you."

"Ha, in your dreams!" Esmerelda crowed, knowing that despite the rules of marriage there was no rule that stated the husband was the one in charge of the union. All of this was just in Prince's blown up head.

Prince's grin disappeared. "I am your husband-."

"Not yet you're not, you little shit!" Esmerelda snapped, letting her temper seep out along with the fear she had of what life would be like if she went along and married Prince. She had been haunted many a night by visions of herself wincing whenever Prince yelled for "MUMMY! MUMMY!"

She had always managed to keep those visions to herself for months, but now they were coming out into the open.

All of the other girls were amazed by the side of Esmerelda they were seeing, but they couldn't blame her for what she was having to put up with.

"Do you actually want to get married?" Mildred asked. "I mean, you'd be away from mummy and daddy, away from your precious toilet seat, away from your wonderful food. Do you really want that? Do you actually know what marriage entails?"

Esmerelda tilted her head. She hadn't thought about this angle, and she was interested in what Prince would say. But Prince's response was typical but it was telling in Esme's mind. "It means I get to be the boss," he said.

"I might be a girl," Esmerelda said with a snort at Prince's predictable reply, "but I'm not a pushover."

"You love me really," Prince argued.

"Love you? Ha! I hate you, I hate everything about you, you fat, loudmouthed little bastard! I'd rather marry Agatha Cackle than marry you!"

The fact she was prepared to marry the woman who had tricked her into giving her all of her magic was telling.

"I think any girl forced to marry him would, Esme," Mildred said.

Maud added, "Too bad we can't fix him up with a werewolf."

"Or a zombie," Sybil said.

Ethel added her own contribution. "Or a vampire."

Enid stewed since there weren't any other decent monsters she could suggest.

"Prince, how long are you here for?" Esmerelda asked as she tried to move on and get it over with.

Prince smirked, proving that the last minute had not registered in his little brain. "A week."

Esmerelda looked sick.

Sybil opened her mouth to ask if she was okay but thought better of it.

Prince went on, oblivious to what was causing Esme's mood and not really caring either way. "You get to spend it with me!"

This was too much for Esmerelda; she got out of her seat and rushed out of the Great Hall.

"What's wrong with her," Prince asked before he began to laugh, "oh I get it, its that bleeding thing you girls get, right?"

All of the girls nearby who heard him, and there were quite a few, looked at Prince with loathing and disgust like he was something to be scraped off of their boots while he laughed as if he'd just heard or told the funniest joke imaginable. Mildred and her friends got out of their seats, though Mildred noted the way some of the nearby wizards who had heard what Prince had just said and they looked embarrassed or they looked like they could escape in a puff of smoke, followed by the Hallow sisters, and rushed out, but not before Mildred snapped, "Really mature of you, Prince."

At the Head table, Miss Cackle had her eyes closed. "I'm glad that boy is over there, no offence Headmaster," she stated though she didn't really care if her opposite number from Camelot High was offended or not.

Fortunately, he wasn't. "None taken," he said as graciously as he could. "That boy is a disappointment to the name of Wizard. You can demean him any time you want."

Hardbroom ate slowly. "I thought Esmerelda was overreacting when she claimed he was bad."

The Camelot High Headmaster snorted. "No, Prince is a nightmare. We have to put up with him day in, day out."

Instantly the Camelot High teachers moaned. "No, please," he said, "please don't. I thought I knew how to deal with difficult students…."

Another teacher sighed, "Yes."

Miss Bat looked at her fellow witches. "Did you see how that terrible boy pushed young Sybil to the ground? I hope she wasn't hurt."

Hardbroom hissed, "Yes."

One of the visiting teachers instantly apologised. "Sorry about that, he doesn't care if someone gets hurt."

"He is lucky," Miss Cackle observed, "I am surprised Esmerelda hasn't killed him yet for hurting her sister."

Her comment instantly brought hopeful looks from the visiting teachers. "She can kill him?"

"Oh, please, yes."

Miss Hardbroom was just remembering something the headmaster had said earlier. "Did you say something about him being the worst wizard?"

"He is," the headmaster said with a sigh. "He refuses to do any of the work, he is disruptive in lessons, and he is terrible in potions. He's alright in spells but he refuses to do the work there. Erm, is it true you have a girl from a non-magical background here? We heard rumours about it, but I just want to know."

"Yes," Miss Cackle said, "her name is Mildred Hubble."

"Does she want to learn magic?"

"Yes, she does," Miss Bat interrupted. "She's passionate about learning new things about the witching world."

The Camelot High Headmaster shrugged. "I'd like to meet her if that's possible. But anyway it shows she is likely to go further than Prince even if he had been born in our world," he said, "she makes mistakes, but she tries to learn from them. Prince refuses to try. He sits there, fidgets in lessons, yells for mummy or daddy when he wants to use the toilet…. Some of our students have asked for private tutoring from our teachers, they don't want him to ruin their educations, and I can't say I blame them."

Meanwhile, Esmerelda was in the bathroom throwing up. She had been cursing Prince and his family for the last five minutes. She had distantly heard the questions of her sisters and her friends, but she hadn't really responded to them.

Ethel and the other girls were outside the stall, listening to the sounds of Esmerelda throwing up. They were debating the best ways to get rid of Prince before the week was over.

"She can't marry him, she just can't," Ethel was saying as she paced up and down the bathroom.

Mildred looked at her friends. "Is there any way the marriage can be broken off?" she asked before she looked at the sisters. "Ignorant of witch traditions here, but please enlighten me."

Ethel sighed, but Mildred was relieved she wasn't about to go off on one of her rants about ignorance. "I don't think there is a way," she said sadly.

Mildred shook her head refusing to just give up. "There has to be," she said.

Maud sighed, "Loopholes in betrothals are hard to find."

Sybil was just as sad as her sister. "They are. Look Mildred, the only way the betrothal can be called off is if our parents, or Prince's, decide to call it off for some reason. There is nothing we can do."

Enid was instantly aware of the thoughtful look on Mildred's face, and she was quick to stop her before she even uttered a word. "No, Mildred, don't even think about it!"

Mildred looked at her in shock. "What?"

Maud caught on quickly to what was bothering Enid. "Don't interfere with the betrothal Mildred," she said as seriously as Enid. "If you do, the Great Wizard will punish you, and there is no way of Miss Cackle protecting you from that. In fact, she would probably step aside and let it happen. It's written in the code; no-one from outside the family can stop it. Trust me, Mildred - I don't like Prince anymore than anyone else does, but there is nothing we can do about it."

Mildred refused to give up and through the door, Esmerelda had to give the girl points for that. It had already occurred to her to try something with the betrothal, but there were too many factors that would stop it.

"What if one of them cheats?"

Maud sighed and rolled her eyes at her friend's insistence on interfering. "Fine, go and kiss him."

Mildred instantly screwed her face up. "No way," she said. "Listen he pushed Sybil, couldn't we say he is abusive."

Enid sighed herself. "It won't work. Some wizards like hurting their wives, and they've put a lot of pressure on the Great Wizard's predecessors to not change that part of the code. There are rules there that are interpreted to allow domestic abuse."

Mildred closed her eyes. "Oh no," she whispered.

Ethel nodded grimly. "It gets better. Prince can have as many mistresses as he wants if he feels Esme is not performing her….duties."

Mildred whispered, "Sick."

Ethel shrugged, not at all offended like she would normally be about the slight against the code. "That is the Witches' code for you. How come you haven't read those parts yet?"

"I'm working my way through it. Is there nothing Esmerelda herself can do, don't take this badly Ethel, but she will become the head of your family, right?"

Ethel frowned, surprised herself she wasn't bothered by it anymore. "Yeah, why?"

Esmerelda sighed and spoke through the door, telling everyone without needing too she had been listening to every word of the debate. "I think I can see where you're going Mildred, you think I can denounce the betrothal between Prince and myself. Well….. I can, but the problem is it depends on which one of us is the eldest. I don't know which one of us is older. If I did then I could have a chance."

Ethel shrugged. "You're older than Prince."

Maud frowned. "What's the idea? I've never heard of this."

"That's because it isn't written down in the code, but depending on which one of us is the eldest, we can basically say the betrothal is annulled. But the problem is without our birth scrolls I can't use the loophole," Esmerelda explained.

Maud shook her head in amazement about this new information about magical law. "I never knew about this."

Esmerelda chuckled. "Neither did I," she admitted, "I learnt about it from my grandmother."

Ethel gaped. "Gran told you?"

Esmerelda nodded. "We aren't the only Hallows who hate Prince," she explained, "she met him at a dinner. Many of the older members of our two families were there, but like our parents they wanted me to marry him so they could access some of his family's connections that they've been hard pressed to make. Their disgust for him was there, but they thought more of the economic and political wealth they'd gain from a marriage. Gran took me aside and told me about the loophole when she found out I hated him."

Enid was worried about this. "Is it still valid?" she asked when she thought she saw a flaw in the plan. "You know how many laws the Great Wizard can alter."

Esmerelda smiled. "Don't worry, the law is valid. Gran has checked and re-checked each year. She has the influence to know."

"Can she help?" Mildred asked. "I've got a feeling we'd get a bit further with someone more experienced than what we've got."

Esmerelda's smile faded, and she exchanged a grim look with her equally grim sisters. "Gran lives in Australia, so it would be hard for her to help, but I see no reason why we can't contact her. She can help. As a senior member of the family, Gran has the authority and access to get our birth scrolls. She can also find out if she can get Prince's. In fact, I know he has an aunt who hates me."

Ethel looked at her in surprise. "Hates you? But why?"

Esmerelda shrugged to show she didn't know and wasn't really bothered. "I don't know. Everything about me she seems to find offensive."

"It could be because you're not as spoilt as he is," Ethel returned.

Esmerelda nodded before she looked at her sisters and her friends. "I can get in touch with my gran easily enough, that's not the problem. The problem is I don't know how long it will take."

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The next few days were rough on Esmerelda, but then again they were rough on everyone. It hadn't taken them long for everyone at Cackles to see Esmerelda's points about Prince and what made him so bad for even the mild-mannered girl. Prince had quickly shown himself to be rude, obnoxious, loud, and disgusting. The witches at the school had witnessed a boy who was nearly an adult cry for his mother while blubbering like a baby, letting his nose dribble down his face, and he had told several gross jokes about girls in general.

The good news was the girls didn't need to spend much time near the boy since he wasn't sharing lessons with anyone, but it didn't take long for them to learn his reputation as 'the worst wizard' became true. The Camelot High wizards were not being taught in the school though they were given rooms to stay in. They had set up magically created cabins for relaxation while others were crafted specifically for the various lessons taught at Camelot High. The wizards were keeping to themselves because while a few of their core subjects were virtually identical to the ones taught to the Cackle's girls, they learnt things witches did not.

And Prince disturbed both of them. The potions hut had its roof blown off on the second day of their stay, and everyone heard the argument between the headmaster and Prince.

The wizard teachers' statement Prince didn't care about hurting others was certainly true, and by the end of the week, Sybil Hallow was not the only Cackle's student to be harmed by him, though it was always indirect.

Mildred Hubble was one of the victims along with Felicity, Gloria, Maud, and Ethel much to Esmerelda's fury. Prince didn't know Mildred was from a non-magical background even if she had magical ancestry, but since he didn't bother asking questions about others he would leave in ignorance just like he wouldn't give a damn about the other girls he hurt during that 'flying lesson.'

It had happened during a flying lesson, one of Mildred's weakest subjects even if she had improved over time.

Unfortunately, Prince and a number of other wizards had been watching. Prince grabbed a broomstick, declaring that the witches were hopeless on broomstick flying and decided to apparently dazzle the girls with how it was really done. Unfortunately, he collided in mid-air with a few of the girls because he couldn't control the broom properly, and he would later offer excuses when he was confronted.

No-one was really hurt, just a few bumps and bruises but the girls were shaken. It was a good thing Miss Drill had been watching, and with the help of two of the wizard teachers, she was able to stop the girls (and Prince) from dying when they hit the ground.

The Camelot High headmaster and Miss Cackle, Miss Drill and Miss Hardbroom wanted to punish Prince, but once more Prince called his mother in. The argument could be heard echoing throughout the school for hours, but not much came from it. The loud voices of everyone in the Headmistress' office had overlapped and it had been hard to really work out what the outcome was.

Meanwhile, the Camelot High students were mixing with their peers. They had been virtually ignored by the Cackle's students after Prince had basically overshadowed them, but they soon introduced themselves and let everyone know that they hated Prince like everyone else.

Enid Nightshade met a boy who was her opposite number at Camelot High and had pranked Prince a number of times.

The boy went over to the table where Enid was eating with Maud and Mildred. The boy only glanced at them and just sat down. "You're the prankster here, aren't you?" he had asked in a manner that suggested he knew he was right.

Enid blinked in surprise but she recovered quickly. "Yeah, I am," she replied before she remembered her friends. "These are my friends, Mildred and Maud."

The boy and the two other girls exchanged greetings. "I just wanted to ask if you wanted to prank Prince? I know you're planning on doing it," he asked without any preamble. Mildred and Maud exchanged a look, they hadn't expected someone to be this forward.

"Yeah, we do," Enid replied, trusting the boy instantly after seeing the same glint that every other prankster had in their eyes. "Why, do you wanna join us?"

The boy smiled. "I sure do," he replied.

"You've pranked him before, right?" Maud asked. "We've been trying to figure out ways of really getting to him."

"Ah, that's easy," the boy said. "Once he was complaining about his food, nothing new there, and so he forced the school cooks into making something 'good.'" The boy shook his head, clearly befuddled about what could be classed as good.

"So what happened?" Mildred asked.

"I turned a piece of chicken on his place into a hen and the bread roll nearby into a pile of flour," the boy said, chuckling as he remembered what Prince did, "I don't think I've ever seen Prince look so surprised in my life."

He sobered up. "Look, really humiliating pranks aren't the answer; Prince always scream and beg for his mother if someone pushes the prank too far," he said, noticing Maud and Mildred look pointedly at their friend and he grinned secretly as he realised the girl was a character before he went on.

"I once locked Prince into one of the gents at Camelot High, I also cast a spell on him that would give him a very very very full bladder and the magical version of a laxative complete with a diarrhoea. He was screaming for his mother, but I'd cast a spell to stop his calls from getting through."

"What happened?" Maud asked slowly, her mind conjuring up a picture of a Prince who was screaming for his mother while trying to stop himself from messing himself before eventually his bowels gave out and mess trickled down his legs.

The boy chuckled. "The spell I'd placed on him to keep his mother out wore off, she arrived just in time to find her precious Prince piss and crap himself."

Mildred looked away with a visible, disgusted shudder, and Maud was not far off.

"What happened then?"

"Prince's mother was furious!" the boy replied with a gleeful chuckle. "She was screaming at the headmaster for hours," his gleeful expression fell for a second, "Of course they knew it was me, but the headmaster let me off though he told me that although it was good to see Prince in such a state, he didn't want to be anywhere near that witch."

Maud could understand that. "Enid," she began seriously, "I wouldn't try that one."

The boy nodded. "Definitely not."

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By the time the week was up, Prince had been humiliated a number of times. Sometimes he was aware of it, sometimes he wasn't which made the humiliating pranks even more laughable. But the pranks he was aware of only made him yell, stomp his foot and act like a child throwing a temper tantrum rather than a wizard.

Esmerelda although glad to see him go was upset. She had waited for two days after chatting with her grandmother - she had needed to wake up in the dead of night and contact Grandma Josephine in order to meet Australia's time difference, which meant she was going to be exhausted in the morning, and she had told her grandmother about Prince and how she wanted to know if she could indeed break the betrothal.

Josephine had been delighted with the prospect and she had indeed looked into the matter and met with the aunt in Prince's family to see the boy's birth scroll. For the next few days Esmerelda had been trying hard to hold onto her anticipation, she was distracted from her school work and was quiet even while her sisters debated with Mildred, Maud, Enid and the boy from Camelot High in arranging and executing the pranks against Prince, and she would lie on her bed virtually incapable of sleeping properly before she began to feel acute fatigue while she waited for her grandmother to get into contact with Prince's aunt.

Esmerelda knew her grandmother would have problems. It was a taboo for a witch to see the birth scroll from another family unless it was to do with betrothals, her grandmother had to take it slowly so then Prince's parents wouldn't find out about what Josephine was doing. Her heart froze at the thought every time she thought it about Prince's parents finding out what her grandmother was doing, but Esmerelda knew her grandma was more cunning than that and she knew what was going on.

For days she was waiting on the edge of her broomstick, hoping for good news. Esmerelda spent most of her time trying to focus on her work, keeping away from Prince, who had spent quite a few days following her around and bothering her. Each time she met Prince, she felt sicker.

But when she had finally received the message from her grandmother, Esmerelda had known from the moment she looked into her grandmother's eyes she didn't have good news. The moment she saw her grandmother's expression she knew what she would say.

Prince was the elder of them both, there was nothing she could do.

It was with a heavy heart she went to her sisters and asked to meet with Mildred, Maud and Enid in Mildred's bedroom. Esmerelda had asked to meet there because Prince had been hanging around her bedroom nearly every day after he had found her room in the school, after that she wanted to spend her nights in either Ethel or Sybil's rooms just to get him off her back.

Once she had told the girls, she had practically lost all hope…. Even seeing the little creep leave Cackles (ignoring the way he had pompously said he looked forward to marriage) brought her little comfort. She was doomed.

00000000000000000

A few years later.

0000000000000000

"MOTHER, WHAT IS THIS?" Prince yelled, silencing all talk in the restaurant with the loudness of his yell. "I THOUGHT I WAS HAVING CHICKEN!"

Mrs Moonlight looked at her son's plate. "It is chicken, bubba," she said. "It's just prepared differently."

"I WANT BETTER FOOD!"

"And you will get it," Mr Moonlight interrupted, wincing visibly at the loudness of his son's voice. "Don't worry - when we get back you can have whatever you like. But it will be hours before we get home, so you had better eat."

Prince looked between his parents. "I WANNA GO HOME NOW!" he bellowed.

Mrs Moonlight lost patience with her son at that moment. "Well, you can't, can you? You failed your transference test, so you can't leave. Now eat your food, or you won't get anything good when we get home!" she shouted at her son.

Prince looked at his mother in shock. It was very rare for either of his parents to lash out the way his mother had just done, but they had been very short with him recently for not getting good results on his tests despite his boasts about being stronger than Merlin. While the Moonlights loved their son and they spoilt him, they had become tired of him recently.

Finally, the Moonlights returned home. Prince was in a somber mood, he had never heard his parents speak to him in such a manner before in his life, though if he had bothered to actually remember then he would have known that once or twice in his past his parents had rolled their eyes, closed their eyes, or spat out their replies.

When they got home, they were greeted by the servants, and the moment Prince saw them he yelled loudly over his parents who didn't even have time to say a few words to find out how things had been at home. "I WANT FOOD!"

The servants, more than used to the screams and yells of their employers' son and knowing it would cost them their jobs if they tried anything to harm "Perfect Prince" their lives would not be worth living, ignored it and they instantly fussed over him. Pretty soon it was not long before Prince was seated at the table with enough food to feed a poor country for a year.

When the boy finally went to bed and his mother finished her customary bedtime story, Prince went to sleep in his massive bed with its ornate bed frame that would only come from a fairy tale or from a king's bedroom. Prince was a deep sleeper, and his snores could literally wake the dead which made it easy for the witch who had been hiding in the bedroom for hours and had been waiting for a long time while the Moonlights were out. She didn't know and frankly didn't care much about where the Moonlights had been tonight, all she knew was they had been out and with the servants just as nonchalant as the ones in her own family, it hadn't been difficult for her to gain entry into the house. The hard part was going about without being seen, but then when you had a large flask of invisibility potion on her person.

She looked down at the boy's sleeping body, grimacing in disgust at the wide open, cavernous hole of the boy's mouth as he snored, the movement of each snore causing his multiple chins to jiggle. The witch silently reached into a pocket of her robes and drew out a small box from an inner pocket. She opened the box and she pulled out a non-magical hypodermic out of the box delicately and took off the stopper she'd placed on the needle to keep the deadly poison from leaking.

Rubbing a potion on the exposed flesh of Prince's wrist which she had also had in the inner pocket of her cloak to numb the area and make the injection painless, the witch slowly drove the needle into the boy's arm before she injected the liquid inside into his flesh before taking it out again and she watched with morbid fascination as a few moments later the result of her plans reached fruition.

The witch looked down at the boy's body for a second as he continued to snore before she left and headed in the general direction of the boy's parents. No-one could be allowed to live tonight. If even one person was allowed to live then the Magical Law Enforcement service would suspect them, she couldn't do that to them. Better for them to be put out of their misery. It was cruel and heartless, but she needed to do it.

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Esmerelda Hallow sighed as she stood in the hotel room of the luxury suite she was currently staying in. She knew she didn't have long left before the Magical Police met her when they told her about Prince's murder. The Magical Police were thorough; they interviewed everyone connected to the victim and they were good at figuring out who was guilty. She wasn't going to give them the chance; the potion was waiting for her, and once she had taken the potion into her mouth she would need only a moment to completely vanish the vial before she swallowed the potion, and then it would be done with.

She walked over to the window overlooking the city of Tokyo. She had been in Japan for the last few months as she worked on her courses; Esmerelda had always wanted knowledge, and with the resources and contacts of the Hallow family there was little she couldn't do. She was planning on giving Ethel a gift in the coming months so she could also benefit from broadening her horizons in another country as far from their parents as possible.

Esmerelda may have been the eldest and would inherit everything but that didn't mean there weren't any loopholes she could exploit to give her sisters benefits. She had sworn a long time ago after that mess with the Founding Stone and Agatha's third attempt to take over the school when her powers were taken from her to never repeat the mistakes of the Cackles and just send Ethel away and create a rift between them where she would try to always be friendly to her sisters only for them to resent her.

It was ironic, in her mind Prince had always been in trouble and he had caused her so much depression especially after she had learnt she was not the elder of the two, and so she couldn't break off the betrothal between her family and his and yet Prince's visit to Cackles had done more to showcase the reality of what her life was really like. Prince's arrival also made her be honest with her sisters, and although she had always refrained from showing them off in the past, she had no hesitation now and by the time Prince and the rest of Camelot High left Cackles her sisters knew about the spell burns on her body and the scars left behind from the old magical whip which would never heal, not with any type of magic.

Ethie and Sybie had both been disgusted and upset by the abuse their elder sister endured, sometimes because of something they had done; one of the problems Mr and Mrs Hallow had always had with Sybil was how she burst into tears whenever she was hurt or pushed, and they didn't care about her sensitivity.

Ethel was disgusted and horrified that the two people she had tried so hard to emulate and draw attention to because of her loneliness and her need for parental affection (never going to happen, Ursula and Triton Hallow didn't have a parental bone in their bodies; the only reason they had kids was because they needed them to keep the Hallow family going) were beating Esmerelda, usually with magic otherwise the injury would soon heal if it was just a slap.

It was ironic that someone like Prince had done more to deepen the bonds between Esmerelda and her sisters until they were more close-knit than they'd ever been in the past, something which surprised the three of them, and yet Prince's visit had caused irreparable damage to the sisters' relationships with their parents. Ethel no longer bothered trying to get their parents love and affectionate attention and Sybil always went to her sisters if she had problems while ignoring their parents altogether. The most amazing thing about the whole mess was their parents didn't seem to notice a difference, but Esmerelda wondered if on some level they both knew their children wanted nothing to do with them and they regretted their life choices, but if they did then Esme's sympathy didn't run very deep.

But while things had become better for the Hallow girls, there was still a Prince shaped shadow on the horizon. The Magical Police knew enough about Prince to know he wasn't very popular and no-one liked him because of his attitude, so they had an enormous array of suspects at hand. Esmerelda doubted they would go too far to use truth potions to find out what really happened, but truthfully they were unlikely to suspect her. She had an alibi, she had been seen with dozens of people and she had never left them.

Once more she was glad that the plan she had devised worked out.

Esmerelda leaned her head against the window, letting out a drawn-out sigh.

Prince was dead because of her.

She closed her eyes as she thought about her reasons and the journey she'd taken which eventually resulted in Prince's death. Esmerelda hadn't planned on committing murder or paying anyone else to murder the little parasite. She had originally planned on finding another, more obscure loophole to break the betrothal. Unfortunately, it hadn't happened, but what was worse was that her sisters had to meet Prince a few more times and as before he ignored them or barely noticed them. But during one of their meetings Prince injured Ethel, far worse than Sybil had been, and she had just about had enough.

At the time Esmerelda had been furious and she had redoubled their efforts to find the loophole, the answer to all of her problems with Prince for when she came to marry him, which would have been in another few months when she had reached her majority under the magical law. But she hadn't had much luck. Esmerelda had been depressed so she had decided to leave her family's home and go into the non-magical world. She was familiar with it, far more than most witches, but since she had once thought she would be trapped in a life without magic she had gone out as often as she could have done.

In her depression, she had gone into a bookshop and looked through the selections before she came across the crime novels. One novel intrigued her, a book written by a woman called Agatha Christie.

And then there were None.

It was a murder "whodunit" novel featuring 10 people invited to an island for a few days, and on the first night a strange voice announced it had found them guilty of murder and listed their crimes - one was a nanny to a boy and had an uncle who would inherit a large fortune, if the kid hadn't been born so she murdered the kid, another was an old soldier who had killed his wife's lover whom she was seeing behind his back, another was a careless playboy who had murdered two children while driving recklessly, people like that; Esmerelda had read about quite a few of those when she had no magic, the newspapers were full of stories like that, and she had wondered if the non-magical world was obsessed with that kind of story.

One by one, the characters of the novel were murdered, killed off in a manner of interesting ways as the killer, who was believed to be one of the party in the first place, which only made everyone suspicious of one another while following the verses of a childish poem, until the last person was hung. The murderer was, in fact, a judge who had developed a passion for murder, and had devised a plan to create the perfect mystery.

Esmerelda was not a murderous person; strangling the doll was not the sign of a murderer, not in her mind, so she had been slow to form a plan. It was fairly straightforward when she had begun the basics and followed the goals of the plan. First, she had needed to find out where the family's calendar was in their home, that was hard enough, but luckily she had found out they were going to go out to a restaurant that night. The Moonlights were not above showing off their fortune like many other families, and Mrs Moonlight often told Ursula Hallow things like her plans to go to the theatre or something like that for a quiet (if possible) family outing.

Esmerelda had spent so much of her time trying to avoid the Moonlights that she had never imagined she would find out her mother was a veritable fountain of information, so she had cast an eavesdropping spell on the room where the two mothers chatted. It didn't take her long to wait for the right opportunity (when she was not fighting off the urge to sleep; the conversations between the pair of them were boring, they were both too alike in their attitudes and their general views of how they thought they were both better than everyone else) to kill Prince and his family, she just regretted having to murder the servants but she could not allow anyone to know anything about who the murderer was and handing it off to the Magical Police and giving them enough information about who was behind the murders. She wanted to get away with literal murder, she couldn't do that if she actually remembered the event.

Esmerelda closed her eyes as she thought about the plan before she headed into her bedroom and took out a small flask from her bag. She stood looking at it silently for a moment, swallowing nervously as she considered it. The potion inside was a memory potion, primed to erase and replace the memory that was being targeted and had been selected. Memory potions of this type required a very skilled hand, and Esmerelda was fortunate to have the right training in advanced potions thanks to taking the subject at college or else she would have made a terrible mistake.

Esmerelda knew she had to take the potion if she was going to get away with this. If she didn't take this potion, she told herself for the hundredth time, then she would screw up and she would say something suspicious and then the Magical Police would arrest her for breaking the code. She would never get out for that. Ever.

She would never see Ethel or Sybil again.

With that, she picked up the potion flask containing the potion and she drank the whole thing in one go but she didn't swallow as she rolled it around her mouth for a second as she remembered what she had done that fateful night.

She had waited for an hour for the Moonlights to leave the property after she had sneaked onto the grounds of their home and hid in the shadows while the family left. After that, she had used an invisibility potion to break in and she hid in Prince's room while taking small doses of the potion to keep her hidden until Prince and his parents came back. Being in Prince's bedroom was boring and she had to be careful unless she wanted to be caught. When they did return, she only had to wait for another hour before he was in bed and Mrs Moonlight was finished with her bedtime story.

Poisoning Prince was not difficult. She had given Prince and his family and their servants a poison that went in two parts. One would sit inside the body, silent and dormant and waiting for the second half of the poison. When the two sides met, they would cause the heart to literally pop. She had given the family the poison about a month before she left for Japan before she had magically transported the second half of the poison when she was safe in Japan.

Esmerelda closed her eyes and swallowed and in the last moments she still had the memory, she hoped she got away with it.

00000000000000000

"Miss Hallow? Can we come in, we're here to talk about Prince Moonlight."

Esmerelda looked up in surprise, why would anyone want to talk to her about Prince? She got up and went to the door, surprised that there were magical's on the other side of the door, but it made sense they would knock; it was a taboo for witches and wizards to turn up unannounced in a place someone was living, in school it made no difference.

"Who is it?" she called through the door. She had no intention of allowing any magical whom she didn't trust in her suite.

"Magical Police, Miss Hallow," the voice on the other side of the door answered.

Esmerelda opened the door and let them in. They were dressed in long dark trench coats and dark suits. "Identification?" Esmerelda asked, looking at them seriously.

The two officers handed over their warrant cards and Esmerelda flicked her hand over the cards and over the officers. They both glowed white, and she let out a sigh of belief.

"Well met," she greeted them, satisfied they were who they said they were.

After the greeting was returned to her, one of the officers said without preamble,"You seem paranoid, Miss Hallow."

Esmerelda smiled at the obvious question. "I made the mistake of trusting a dark witch once," she said, "and I gave my magic away before I managed to get it back. I've learnt not to be so trusting to those whom I barely know."

"That's an understandable stance," one of the officers said with a nod of approval. Neither looked surprised by her brief explanation and so Esmerelda guessed they had already known about what had happened to her, though it wouldn't have been difficult. Her parents had tried to keep the story of her losing her magic under wraps but too many witches at Cackles had spilt the potion and the rumours had circulated, but this was not the time to think about it.

Once the three were seated and Esmerelda had made the customary offer of refreshment which the officers refused, they got down to business.

"You said you wanted to speak about Prince Moonlight, what did you want to know?" Esmerelda asked.

"How well do you know him?"

Holding back the shudder she always got whenever she thought of the obnoxious boy, Esmerelda said, "He's going to be my husband according to a betrothal contract written up by my parents - his and mine. We would sometimes meet with said parents at different functions, and I know he was a student at Camelot High. Why, what's this all about?"

One of the officers sighed. "Prince Moonlight and his parents, along with the servants of his family, died last night," he said slowly to judge her reactions.

Esmerelda gasped with shock. "What? What happened?"

"They were poisoned. We're having trouble identifying the poison used, but we know it's magical in origin," one of the officers replied. "We're trying to find out what happened, and we're questioning everyone known to the family."

Esmerelda nodded. The Magical Police were thorough and they always looked into everyone known to the victim, perpetrator, or suspect. She knew this was just routine. "I'll answer whatever question you've got, but I have been in Japan for some time, and I didn't leave," she said.

"We understand Miss Hallow, but we've got to chase this up."

The questioning lasted for half an hour, in that time they asked her about her relationship with the Moonlights. As was their procedure the Magical Police generated a truth halo around Esmerelda's head so they would tell if she was telling the truth. She answered every question truthfully, not that she had much choice. Every answer she gave they asked her ten more questions. They soon left her, confident in the knowledge Esmerelda Hallow didn't know anything about the murder of Prince Moonlight.

The memory potion had done its work. She had taken it to maintain the secret, to have a life without worrying about what the end result could be and worrying about what would happen if her sisters found out she was a murderer. But one of the primary reasons she had done it was because of the Magical Police, they would have arrested her and charged her with murder and the case would have been closed and she would never see either Ethel or Sybil again.

The memory potion lasted in her body for years, and it wore off when she was on her deathbed, surrounded by her friends and family. When she did remember, she only had five minutes to reflect on what she had done before she died.

The End.


End file.
